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Ideological Divide in North Carolina

     Without any political representation or financial intake, southerners impatiently demanded their immediate return to the Union.  Yet other North Carolinians sensed a pervaded loyalty to the federal government.  In Surry County, North Carolinian Unionists expressed their unwillingness to associate with pro-Union imposters by protesting the inclusion of ex-Confederates in the federal government and noting that the “spirit of disaffection is on the increase, sectional hate is nurtured by a large class of those, who failed in their attempts to overthrow the government and the liberties of the people, and by a class of professed Unionists who were always unstable.” (Item #2818).  By midyear 1866, North Carolinians already started removing themselves from areas of backward thinking whose inhabitants refused to forget their cultural history once possessed before their secession from the Union.  With the polarization of blacks still deeply entrenched in white society, North Carolina began to experience a similar shift in public relations among its white citizens.  However, much of the news coverage of the time period sustained its focus on North Carolina’s eventual political ascension, overtly failing to feature the recent liberties enjoyed by African Americans.

Ideological Divide in North Carolina